Book Title: Satapatha Bramhana Part 05
Author(s): Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford


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Page 1315
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I ADHYAYA, I PÂDA, 1.
107
whatever might be the object of any state of consciousness whatever.
Against this our opponent may now argue as follows :There is, after all, something, called avidya, or agñana, or by some other name, which is a positive entity (bhava), different from the antecedent non-existence of knowledge ; which effects the obscuration of the Real; which is the material cause of the erroneous superimposition on the Real, of manifold external and internal things; and which is terminated by the cognition of the true nature of the one substance which constitutes Reality. For this avidya is apprehended through Perception as well as Inference. Brahman, in so far as limited by this avidya, is the material cause of the erroneous superimposition-upon the inward Self, which in itself is changeless pure intelligence, but has its true nature obscured by this superimposition of that plurality which comprises the ahamkâra, all acts of knowledge and all objects of knowledge. Through special forms of this defect (i. e. avidya) there are produced, in this world superimposed upon Reality, the manifold special superimpositions presenting themselves in the form of things and cognitions of things-such as snakes (superimposed upon ropes), silver (superimposed on shells), and the like. Avidya constitutes the material cause of this entire false world; since for a false thing we must needs infer a false cause. That this avidya or agñana (non-knowledge) is an object of internal Perception, follows from the fact that judgments such as I do not know,' 'I do not know either myself or others,' directly present themselves to the mind. A mental state of this kind has for its object not that non-knowledge which is the antecedent non-existence of knowledge-for such absence of knowledge is ascertained by the sixth means of proof (anupalabdhi); it rather is a state which presents its object directly, and thus is of the same kind as the state expressed in the judgment 'I am experiencing pleasure.' Even if we admit that 'absence of something' (abhava) can be the object of perception, the state of consciousness under discussion cannot have absence of know. ledge in the Self for its object. For at the very moment
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